Engie targets 100% renewable gas supply in France by 2050

December 7 (Renewables Now) - French energy group Engie (EPA:ENGI) believes it will supply its French clients with gas of 100% renewable origin by 2050.

The established natural gas supplier on Monday announced it will invest heavily in biomethane and hydrogen to green its gas offering.

Engie is already working on some forty biogas projects in France - facilities that turn waste, mostly agricultural waste, into methane.

The French company also wants to develop hydrogen production units, converting electricity produced by renewable sources into gas to power fuel cell vehicles. "We are going to gradually green our gas supply, so that by 2050 it can be 100% green," CEO Isabelle Kocher told a press conference.

"We are interested in developing big projects to create industrial standards, lower costs and ensure that the business grows from small projects, currently representing around 1% of the demand in France - to something closer to 100 %," she added.

Gas is a necessary ingredient for the energy transition to work because the more renewable electricity enters the energy mix, the bigger the problem of the intermittency of these sources gets, underlined Isabelle Kocher, for whom the " pain threshold "is around" 20-30% "and must be overcome by means of gas storage.

Engie estimates that "green" gas could represent 10% of French consumption by 2025 and 30% in 2030. The company's renewable gas investments are expected to grow from "a few dozen" to "a few hundred" million euros a year.